Built a wall around my heart

(I'll never let it fall apart)

But strangely, I wish secretly

It would fall down while I'm asleep

Stuck.

I know that word is extremely vague. I’m not inactive or unmotivated…I’m actually very far from it. My activity level in all aspects of my life is at its peak and I feel more inspired to create, to move, to be more than ever. I’ve met wonderful, interesting new people and sustained worthwhile old ones. If I’m being honest, its true that all of these positive events could not have happened without stemming from one, extremely impacting negative one but that’s just me recognizing the it-all-works-out of it all.

No, I’m not stuck in a mental sense (or physical…ha). I really am blessed in such areas. What I’m trying to express is how in-between everything is right now. I can say with great certainty that what happened was a positive experience in the grand scheme of things, but I yet I can’t say that I’ve moved past the negativity of it all. Basically, I know that going through all this emotional turmoil will make me a better/stronger person and I can look back and see it all as rewarding, but just being able to say that makes me uncomfortable. The fact that I recognize my current state and how it will affect me later just gives me this ill-fitted feeling of knowing too much. Someone grant me some negative capability?

Maybe it’s just me…but probably not.

After a while you learn the subtle difference

between holding a hand and sharing a life
and you learn that love doesn’t mean possession
and company doesn’t mean security
and loneliness is universal.

And you learn that kisses aren’t contracts
and presents aren’t promises
and you begin to accept your defeats
with your head up and your eyes open
with the grace of a woman
not the grief of a child.

And you learn to build your hope on today
as the future has a way of falling apart in mid flight.
Because tomorrow’s ground can be too uncertain for plans,
yet each step taken in a new direction creates a path
toward the promise of a brighter dawn.

And you learn that even the sunshine burns
if you get too much
so you plant your own garden
and nourish your own soul
instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that love, true love,
always has joys and sorrows,
seems ever present, yet is never quite the same,
becoming more than love and less than love
so difficult to define.
And you learn that through it all
you really can endure
that you really are strong
that you do have value
and you learn and grow
with every good bye
you learn.

This was a handful of years back. It was about eight months before the huge, flame-out of a breakup. That day, though? That day we painted the living room? It was pretty uneventful. We painted my parents living room for $50 between us and a pizza. That was it. I think we watched Anchorman or something after that.

But it still holds as on of the most indelible memories I have. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not still in love, it happened, it was good, it ended, and we’ve both moved on. But I’ll never forget that day. Because it’s never, in the long run, about the grand gestures. You can fly across the world and show up on her doorstep with a rose in your teeth and a ring in a little velvet box but I can guarantee you that - more often than not - she’s going to remember the time you built the birdhouse in the back yard, or what have you, a whole lot more.

Life wasn’t meant to be taken in large movements. The next day will inevitably arrive, you’ll sleep, and the moment will have passed. But when you have a hundred thousand small moments, you can step back and appreciate the picture a lot more than metaphorically blowing your load on some grand moment that, in all honesty, look, you’re not Bruce Fucking Springsteen, you’re not going to be able to blow everyone’s mind every single night. You’re not Romeo and/or Juliet. There’s no reason to drink the poison together in some flame-out gesture. So that leaves us with the small stuff. It’s all about the detail.

That’s what love is. Attention to detail.

And the moment will end. And then things will get boring. And it might get a little quiet. And it might all end horribly. And you might hate eachother at the end. And you might walk away from eachother one day and never speak again. But that’s just how it goes.

But she’ll remember the time you held the door open for her on your first date.
She’ll remember the time you laughed at her impression of the landlady.
She’ll remember the time you stayed up all night that first time.
She’ll remember the small things a lot longer than the big ones.

But everything ends. And I’ll tell you why you have to make the small things, the small moments count so much more:

One day, probably a while longer from now, when old age takes ahold of someone, she might just only remember your smile. Everything you ever did together, every second, every moment, every beat, every morning spent in bed, every evening spent together on the sofa, all of that - gone. Everything you ever did will be reduced to the head of a pin. She won’t remember your name. She’ll just remember your smile, and she’ll smile. She won’t know why. It’s a base, gut reaction. But she’ll smile, uncontrollably, and it will come from somewhere so deep as to know that you touched her on a primal, honest, and true level that no scientist, scholar, or savant could everbegin to explain. There is no more. There is nothing else. There is just this: She’ll remember your smile, and she’ll smile.

And you know what? That’s all that really matters in the end.